How to Get Promoted (on Colorado Pols)

Here’s a quick refresher course for how to get your diaries promoted to the front page and how to get your ass banned. Click below for more:

HOW TO GET YOUR DIARY PROMOTED

The best diaries to promote are those that are both relevant and require little editing for the administrators of the site. You are MUCH more likely to see your diary promoted, for example, if you follow these simple suggestions:

1. Make the headline relevant and short (and please, NEWSMAN, not in all caps). All caps is for BREAKING NEWS only. Don’t write two sentences in the headline, and please try to capitalize all of the words in the headline.

2. Where’s the link? Don’t just talk about a story – provide the link. The whole point of these here internet tubes is to share information. If you don’t know how to include the link, it’s simple:

Follow this formula and we will all be happy. Oh, and don’t reference any of these outlets (read this for an explanation):

MEDIA NEWS GROUP

The Denver Post

Boulder Daily Camera

Ft. Morgan Times

Journal-Advocate (Sterling)

The Lamar Ledger

FREEDOM COMMUNICATIONS

The Colorado Springs Gazette

SWIFT COMMUNICATIONS

Eagle Valley Enterprise

Glenwood Springs Post Independent

Grand Junction Free Press

Greeley Tribune

NOCOpages.com

Snowmass Sun

Sky-Hi Daily News

Summit Daily News

The Aspen Times

The Citizen Telegram

Vail Daily

Windsor Now

3. Don’t post the whole story Cut and paste relevant parts. Don’t cut and paste the whole damn thing. Not only is that a copyright violation, but nobody wants to read it. Use ellipses (…) to indicate that you are citing two different sections of the story. Use blockquotes to indicate that you are citing something, and not writing something.

4. Tie your post back into Colorado and Politics. This is Colorado Pols, and we talk about Presidential politics because it affects Colorado. If you want to talk about something in another state, it had better be REALLY interesting or have some relation to Colorado. If you want to talk about something other than politics, it had better be good. But please, stick to politics.

5. Can’t cite it? Don’t write it. If you can’t cite, with links, a detailed accusation about something…don’t write it here. If you want to float a rumor, you ABSOLUTELY MUST have some substance behind it. Not only will a post like that not be promoted, it will be deleted. We are not the place for you to attempt to float negative, damaging rumors about candidates, no matter the party. We will be diligent about this, and you will be banned from the site. We’re not getting sued over some rumor you tried to start.

6. Can’t write nice? Don’t write at all. Please, no vulgarity or unnecessary and childish name-calling. Your post will disappear faster than a can of hair spray in Adele Arakawa’s medicine cabinet, and you’ll be on your way to getting banned from the site.

Thanks all. Please feel free to suggest your own community rules below. This is your world – we just lord over it.

Grand Junction gets no Denver TV news. Apparently the FCC believes the local stations over here are adequate (gag, choke). We don’t even get home delivery of the Denver Post anymore (Thank you, Dean). Might as well be part of Utah …

of Republican dominance when we didn’t have to deal with other perspectives. Bring back John Andrews and rock ribbed Republican issues like saying the Pledge of Allegiance in school. This Democracy thing with multiple viewpoints is such a drag. Why can’t we just be a single totalitarian regime like every other conservative culture in the Middle East?

Facethestate hasn’t had new content since the August, when it went on hiatus to “reorganize” or some such thing. Not a peep out of them since. I have a hard time buying that FTS gets more unique visitors than Pols when it has been basically shut down for the past 2 1/2 months.

I found this to be very helpful. This is my first — and only blog — and I haven’t been entirely sure about how all the aspects of it work, i.e. I never knew what the diaries were for.

I do appreciate the fact that you have set this all up in the first place. I know it’s fun, but it is also a lot of work.

I’d like to offer a suggestion for the Profile section on the member page. It would be helpful if there was a box where members could choose to list books they have recently read.

I’m an avid reader and most of what I like to read is non-fiction. Seeing what someone else has read sometimes helps to understand where they are coming from. Also, I occasionally get ideas of what to read from others. I am not adverse to reading something I may not agree with. It is interesting to learn where the “other side” is coming from. It’s why I listen to Air America AM760 in the car and NPR 90.1 FM at home.

Leon Trotsky once wrote (imagine that… a Republican quoting a Communist!)

Learning carries within itself certain dangers because out of necessity one has to learn from one’s enemies.

There is a recommended reading diary that comes along every 6 mos, and it gets promoted (now Pols wont promote the next one to spite me)*. I made one way back when and it got promoted, and ballooned my reading wish list by a factor of 10.

So, I recommend either starting a new diary or every once in a while post a review in the open thread.

You’re asking me to specifically debate certain proposals of Sen. Obama’s, and a problem for me is that he’s rarely specific on his policy page. Lots of promises, light on details, which is a problem of his I’ve been pointing out.

An example:

# Secure Loose Nuclear Materials from Terrorists: Obama will secure all loose nuclear materials in the world within four years. While we work to secure existing stockpiles of nuclear material, Obama will negotiate a verifiable global ban on the production of new nuclear weapons material. This will deny terrorists the ability to steal or buy loose nuclear materials.

# Strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: Obama will crack down on nuclear proliferation by strengthening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty so that countries like North Korea and Iran that break the rules will automatically face strong international sanctions.

1. How exactly does he propose to secure all loose material? What if it’s in a country that doesn’t want it secured?

2. How much more could Iran and North Korea be isolated and sanctioned by the US? The problem is China and Russia, and will continue to be so. Specifically, how does Obama propose to have the Chinese and Russians “automatically” levy sanctions on rogue nations that they support?

On KHOW’s Caplis & Silverman show this afternoon, 6th Congressional Candidate Mike Coffman expressed his support for abortion in cases of rape or incest. Previously Coffman attended fundraisers for the ammendment 48 (Personhood) campaign, donated money to the campaign, and put in writing the fact that he doesn’t support abortion in any circumstance. Following is the link to the actual questionaire that candidate Coffman provided to Colorado Right to Life earlier this year. Perhaps he should have asked Bob Schaffer or James Dobson how they faired when they crossed these folks. 2010 could be very interesting for Congressman Coffman.

We all know that politicians spend way too much time and money solving the wrong problems. This year, Secretary of State Bernie Buescher not only fixed a non-problem with new legislation, but gave himself a really slick campaign gimmick to boot – handing out money as he campaigns for election.

What was the non-problem? Well, the Secretary of State’s office had accumulated unclaimed funds between 1997 and 2004 in the form of unused pre-paid accounts and fee overpayments, the vast majority in the Business Division. Much of it was owed to law firms and banks. Some amounts were as much as a few hundred dollars and many were as little as $1, but in each case the entitled party had failed to request a refund.

Here Buescher saw a golden opportunity that this politician simply could not resist. Never mind that we already had a perfectly good, already paid for, solution: the Colorado State Treasury’s “Great Colorado Payback”, a program designed just for the purpose of alerting citizens to money owed to them. That would have been sensible and cost-effective for the rest of us.

Instead, Buescher went to the effort of introducing a bill last legislative session which allowed him to divert these funds from Treasury’s program. He introduced his bill in a legislative session where our representatives could have been working on a problem (perhaps the state’s fiscal crisis?) rather than a non-problem. The result? Buescher conjures up a way he can send out personalized letters, on our dime, with his signature, enclosing small checks to people all over the state. Lots of letters (up to 40,000), lots of postage, and lots of state employee time.

To add insult to injury, Buescher hired a number of temporary employees to work on this alongside regular staff, in a year when our state budget is woefully under water. The regulars and temps spend their time searching for addresses of people who can’t be found, and starting over when his letters are returned undeliverable. (Ironically, the legislature provided in the bill that the amounts that are undeliverable must be transferred to the Treasury program.)

Meanwhile, many of the firms that actually receive checks can’t figure out what to do with them. How does a law firm fairly return a grand total of $200 to the rightful owners when it may have charged the $200 to 20 clients over 10 years ago? Any cost-benefit analysis of the whole scheme makes it a loser for taxpayers. Moreover, this is money owed to people who could not be bothered to ask for it back!

If Buescher really wanted to return money to the Department’s customers, he might try lowering the business fees he charges. To set the record straight, under Buescher not a single fee has been reduced for Business Division customers whose fees almost entirely pay for running the Secretary of State’s office. Instead, the fees remain the same, services suffer, and the Secretary gives millions each year to the general fund, where it is not supposed to go, but which endears him to other politicians.

The only one this Giveback Gimmick makes any sense to is Secretary of State Buescher. He can give money back (not his), and spend money to do it (not his), all during an election he desperately hopes to win. Buescher features the phrase “transparency” a lot on the Department’s website – and in his campaign. Well, to be sure, the motivations behind his Giveback Gimmick are all-too transparent.

This is why we have an open thread. I see you joined today just to post this pile of crap. Can you shills at least make an effort not to be so obvious, when you’re out and about working on behalf of your candidate?

You’re giving Buescher shit because he did the right thing? God, if you’re a “thinking voter”, the world really is screwed.